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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 5, 1988)
Wednesday, October 5, 1988/The Battalion/Page 7 Sports Dream the impossible dream Ball-control critical to Ag win over UH TU- By Doug Walker Assistant Sports Editor How do you stop an offense I that is averaging 39.3 points and 484.7 yards per game? Easy. You keep the ball to I yourself. Apparently that is the way the [Texas Aggie Head Coach Jackie Sherrill hopes to stop the potent Run-’n-Shoot offense of the Houston Cougars. The emergence of a powerful rushing attack may have come just in time for the Aggies, who take on the Cougars in the Astro dome Saturday afternoon. At his weekly press conference Tuesday at Cain Hall, Sherrill said the ability of the Aggie of fense to control the ball on time- consuming drives will be one of the keys to the game. The success of the running at tack played a big part in A&M’s victory over Texas Tech. The Aggies kept the feared Raider offense from being a fac tor in the first half by pressuring quarterback Billy Joe Tolliver and running up more than twenty minutes of possession time. The extensive use of the wish bone offense allowed quarterback Bucky Richardson to see more playing time. Sherrill said he believes the team’s success depends largely on getting Richardson into the game. “We’ll probably continue to ex pand with the wishbone,” Sherrill said. “It’s something we needed to do simply to get Bucky on the field. “He’s a great option quar terback, and we needed to get him on the field to make things happen.” However, Sherrill added that [the Aggies have not become ex clusively an option team. He said the offense will remain 1 a multiple attack with the passing game remaining an important el- lement. “You have to throw the foot ball,” Sherrill said. “That’s one thing that we haven’t done. “For us to get back and win the way we should be winning we have to throw and catch the foot ball.” The wishbone attack allows the Aggies to utilize the speed of their young running backs with out changing the blocking schemes used in their regular of fense. “Our running backs are the kind that we can get the ball to in the open field, and that’s a plus,” Sherrill said. “You can run a multiple of fense if you keep the blocking schemes the same,” he said. “To win the way we ought to be win ning, you’ve got to throw the ball. “We’ll have to throw and catch the football successfully to beat Houston.” Sherrill also praised running back Darren Lewis and said the sophomore is still not completely healthy. Lewis suffered a bruised shoul der against Tech to go along with the toe he injured against Ne braska in the season opener. Both bother him, but Sherrill said they should not keep Lewis put of the game Saturday. “Darren is not healthy yet,” he said. “He’s a legitimate back. One of those backs that comes along every once in a while. I’m glad that we’ve got him for a couple more years.” Lewis is currently seventh in the nation in individual rushing with an average of 128.7 yards per game. The only bad news for the of fense is that fullback Matt Gurley may have played his last game as an Aggie. After missing the last three games with a knee injury, he re-injured the knee Saturday night and may be out for the sea son. Spend a moment in the shoes of Darren Lewis By Hal L. Hammons Sports Editor Profile of the Week Darren Lewis OK, all you would-be All-Ameri cas out there, all you guys who wish you had that one extra juke move; here’s your big chance. For five min utes, be Darren Lewis. Cast your mind back to Saturday’s game against Texas Tech. Put your merely human feet in the soon-to- be-legendary shoes. Pick a play — any play. Maybe you’ll chose the first play of the third quarter Saturday: You take a pitch wide left; you cut across the grain; you go over, around or just plain through five or six defend ers; you turn on the afterburners for a 28-yard gain that is one tackier from a touchdown. It’s the play Coach Jackie Sherrill singled out at Tuesday’s press con ference: “That’s the sign of a great back,” he said. Or perhaps you would prefer a second-and-12 play on the Aggies’ third drive of the game. After watch ing quarterback Chris Osgood throw away (literally) a sure score the drive before, you single-handedly (again, literally) avoid another error. You snag an option pitch two feet behind you with one hand, tuck it in, and turn a six-yard loss and possible turnover into an 11-yard gain. Both options, of course, give you the extra honor of contributing the key play of a touchdown drive. Of course, you could choose a touch down plunge of your own for your personal play. Perhaps then you will be able to understand what happens inside those shoes — how a person can do the things that he, and so few others, can do. But don’t count on it. Lewis him self doesn’t know. “I don’t know where it comes -k Your Vote bur Vb/ce Y * REGISTER TO VOTE: !,• if you are 18 years old, or will be by November 8, and a U.S. citizen, then you are eligible w T to vote Nov. 8; ^ • if you do not have a WHITE registration certificate with your current address, you are not'J registered to vote; r* when filling out your voter registration application, put your LOCAL RESIDENCE ADDRESS (your dorm room or street address) in order to vote locally on Nov. 8; • the voter registration application must be postmarked no later than October 9. -jpC THEN VOTE REPUBLICAN: * _ -K |A(» under the Republicans more people are working today than ever before; 16.8 million new ,jobs have been created since November 1982; ^ r* under the Republicans interest rates are down from 21.5 percent to 8.22 percent (in 1987),^ ‘and inflation is down from 13.5 percent to 3.7 percent (in 1987); |^* under the Republicans strong defense policies have kept America at peace and brought i*the Soviets back to the bargaining table. For More Information On Registering To Vote & Voting Republican Contact: | Texas A&M Victory ’88 Committee sjc Come to our Next Meeting ^ Wed. Oct. 5, 7:00 p.m. 701 Rudder * or Stop by Our Table in the MSC * Photo by Jay Jan nor It’s not too big a leap of logic to see Darren Lewis as a Heisman Trophy winner in a couple of years. from,” he said Tuesday. “It just hap pens. You’re here, and next thing — Boom! —you’re there.” Unconscious. Literally. It’s not a mere move that occupies Darren Le wis’ thoughts on the field. No, from handoff to tackle — or lack thereof — a single thought posesses him. “What I think about is a touch down,” he said. “Every play. Every time I move closer, I look at the goal line.” ' Obsessive, perhaps? He doesn’t think so. To him it’s just a way of tell ing himself, “You could have been there with one more move. You could have been there with one move burst of speed.” But then, Darren Lewis doesn’t seem obsessive about anything. He just glides through the attention and the hype as easily as through a wave of linebackers. No sweat, no strain, no effort. He probably is the only one in Ag- gieland who doesn’t waste any brain power on speculations of future' glory. And the sights are set high, make no mistake. If Lewis “only” makes it to All-America status by the time he graduates, a lot of Aggie fans are going to be disappointed. When Lewis first came to A&M, all Aggie fans could talk about was that a future Heisman Trophy win ner was in the maroon-and-white. His name was Lance Pavlas back then. Things have changed somewhat. For all practical purposes back in September of 1987, Pavlas was the only freshman on the team. Randy Simmons was injured. Shane Garrett was a Proposition 48 casualty. No one had even heard of Bucky Rich ardson. And Lewis? Well, he was a 4.3 40- yard dash out of Dallas Carter who made a 470 on his SAT. Period. Sure, he was enrolled and acade mically eligible to play football —un like several of his teammates. But that didn’t brake the headlines. “It’s just one of those things,” Le wis said. “A person makes one mis take, and people blow it all out of proportion. “I’m glad (the SAT questions) are finally over. People from all over were asking me about my scores. This gives me a chance to relax and play football.” It didn’t look like he would play much football at all last year. Keith Woodside was returning for his se nior year, and Lewis assumed he would be red-shirted and not play at all. Then came Southern Mississippi. See Lewis, page 8 AT&T PRESENTS FREE SNEAK PREVIEW SALLY FIELD TOM HANKS IN PUNCH UNE IImIIHii 111 Illillli-K- mra mil up liify uniiQ pifuijii *171 «s Mi (dub aw® u#>- ‘i?1 * PlI Ijim ue Ml lil jer li!! XUIH “—mw Q FREE MOVE POSTER STUDENTS PRESENTING A COMPLETED SCREEN ING PASS AT THE DOOR OF THE THEATER WILL RE CEIVE A FREE MOVIE POSTER. (Poster quantities limited.) 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